Tijuana Papa
by Princess Pinky
Summary: All Ricky wanted to do was stop for gas, but with the kids in tow, it's just got to be one of those days!


**A/N: **First step, Google a picture of a Tijuana Mama if you don't know what it is. Second step, enjoy the story! (Which is based on a real incident. lol)

_**Tijuana Papa**_

John Juergens smashed his face to the window of the back passenger window, making his lips and nose appear shiny as if they'd been slicked with grease. He shifted his brunette eyes to the very bottom corners of their sockets, trying to see his father as the latter filled the car with gasoline. "Da-bby!" he called, his voice muffled against the glass. "Da-bby!" When Ricky Underwood didn't answer, he began to impatiently slap his grubby palms against the glass.

Distracted by the sound of his son's noises, Ricky glanced up and knitted his brows together. "Daddy's filling up the tank, John. Wait a sec!"

"Da-bby! Da-bby! I gotta go poo!"

Ricky looked up again, not paying attention to the control on the handle, which snapped back and pinched his thumb. "Ah! F – ruitcake!" He hopped up and down, holding his thumb and blowing across it as his son laughed from his car seat. "I'm glad you find this funny," he glared, which only made the little boy laugh harder. Putting his mind back to the task at hand, he topped off the tank and went to hang up the handle, only for a little gasoline still in the nozzle to drool out and splash across Ricky's hand and shoe. "Damnit!"

John hit the window again, this time with just one hand, while the other was used to plug his nose. "Daddy!" he yelled, his face no longer pressed to the glass. "Sissy made a stinky!"

"Oh!" he groaned. "Not now!" While screwing on the gas cap, he peered into the window, over his son and to the other side of the car, where a light skinned Latina child was sitting in a pink car seat, blowing spit bubbles and playing with her toes. _"Great."_

"Stinky, stinky, stinky!" John bellowed in a sing-a-long fashion, causing his father to envision the words with a dancing animation bouncing from one to the other in his head.

Ricky yanked the lever on the paper towel dispenser above the squeegee bucket, only to discover that it was empty. He cursed again, this time under his breath, and shook his hand in vain attempting to air out the wretched gasoline stench. When that didn't work, he opened the driver's door and popped the trunk, where he retrieved both the stroller and a diaper wipe from the diaper bag, which only gave his gas tainted skin a fresh scent undercurrent. Discouraged, he rounded to the passenger side, where he unlocked the door and loaded the little girl into the stroller, then moved to the other door, where he pulled his son out of his car seat and firmly grasped the little boy's hand with his non-smelly appendage.

John tilted his head back as his father tugged him along. "You smell badder than Sissy," he spoke pointedly.

"Thanks for noticing," Ricky grumbled as they made it to the bathroom outside and around the back of the gas station. Once inside, Ricky locked the door and made a move to the sink, where he gave his hands three consecutive washings with extra soap and the hottest water he could stand.

"Somebody was bad," John said, pointing to the graffiti on the mirror. "Mommy says no drawin' on walls."

"And she's absolutely right," Ricky agreed as he dried his hands under the thunderous air dryer. He sniffed his hands, disturbed to still smell the gasoline, but at least not as potent as it had been. Deciding it was good enough for the moment, he grabbed the last seat cover from the package and laid it across the seat. As he reached for John, the little boy shook his head. "What now?"

"Mommy always gots two," he explained, looking to the seat cover.

"There's only one, that's the last one left." When John wouldn't budge, Ricky looked around and then pulled off for extravagant strips of toilet paper and laid them across the seat. "How about that?"

John scratched his nose, then hopped up and down. "I guess," he replied, scuffing his heels disappointedly.

"Fantastic!"

Once on the toilet, John batted his legs back and forth. "Daddy?"

"What?"

"Where does the poo go when I flushes it?"

Twenty minutes, five more hand washes, a changed diaper, and an explanation about sewage pipes later, Ricky finally found himself standing in line to pay for an armload of sugary road snacks and his gas. He was rifling through his wallet when the cashier politely made him aware that it was his turn. Flustered, Ricky slapped a fifty onto the table. "Gas on…on…" he turned, pointed. "That one, the red one-"

The cashier followed his finger and smiled. "Four."

"Yeah, I think so. Sorry, I'm not usually this disorganized."

"It's alright, we all have those days." She smiled down at John and the bundle in his arms. "Are those all for you?" she grinned.

John nodded eagerly, already attempting to rip the wrapper off his tootsie pop.

"We've got to pay for them first, John." Ricky gently extracted the items and piled them onto the counter for the cashier to scan.

"And who's that?" she asked, running the bar code of a package of sour gummy worms across the scanner.

"Sissy," John explained as though the answer was obvious.

"Oh!" She dropped the worms into a plastic bag along with the other groceries and punched a few keys on her register. "You must be a proud big brother then, aren't you?" At John's confident nod, she smiled again. "I take it she looks like her mother?" she asked, this time aiming the question at Ricky.

"She's actually my step-daughter," Ricky explained fondly. "John's step-sister, but she might as well be mine."

"Daddy?"

"One moment, John," Ricky murmured as he chatted with the cashier and attempted to fish out exact change from his wallet.

"But Daddy-"

"Patience, John-"

Annoyed at being put off, John began to tug eagerly at his father's pant leg. "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

"John!" Ricky snapped, dropping his wallet onto the floor.

"_Look!"_

Exasperated, Ricky finally followed John's finger to his step-daughter's face, who wore such a contorted two-toothed expression it rivaled the look of Medusa herself. Then he realized that wrapped in her chubby little hand was a sickly orange roll of meat. Without a second thought, he plucked the package from the little girl's hand and realized it had two small tears in the plastic wrapping. Ricky flipped it over to read the name: "Tijuana Mama?"

"Ooh," the cashier grimaced. "Those are pickled sausages, they're_ really_ spicy. I'm shocked she's not in tears!"

At that point, Ricky grimaced too, because the wafting smell of the aforementioned spice finally permeated his nostrils from the aptly placed bite marks. "How much is it?" he sighed.

"It's fine," the cashier laughed. "You're not the first dad whose baby has gotten into something they shouldn't." She took it from his grasp and deposited it somewhere behind the counter.

"Thanks," he exhaled. "C'mon, John!" He grabbed the bag on one arm, John's hand in his, and took the handle of the stroller with the other. As they got to the car, John began to laugh manically. "What's so funny?"

John pointed to his step-sister's face, still appearing as though she'd sucked on a lemon for twenty-four hours straight. "Sissy's funny!"

Ricky cringed and knelt down in front of his son. "This is just between the three of us, okay? Don't tell anyone about Sissy's face!"

"Not Mommy?"

"Noooo! Not Mommy!"

"Not Adwian?"

"Definitely not Adrian!"

"Ben?"

"No! Just us?"

"Aunt Gwace?"

"And _least_ of all Aunt Grace! Absolutely _not_ Aunt Grace!"

John scratched his nose. "Nobody?"

"Nobody." Ricky shook his head in confirmation. He strapped his step-daughter into her car seat, then walked John around to the other side of the car and sat him down in his own seat. "And if you can be that good for me, I'll even put a good word in for you with Santa this year, okay?"

"Santa!" John cheered, his face suddenly alight. "I cans be good! I cans be good!" He made a zipping motion across his lips. "I says nutting!"

Ricky patted John's head. "That's my boy!"


End file.
